So I'm fat, big deal," the 32-year-old disc jockey for a local radio station exclaimed when I told him that he was obese. "I never go to the beach so I don't care if I've got a fat stomach. Hey, I work in radio, no one ever sees me. So what's the big deal?"
If aesthetics or the inability to fit into a seat at the movie theater were the only problems associated with obesity, being overweight wouldn't be much more than a cosmetic problem or an occasional inconvenience. But excess body fat and blood fats are more damaging than
that—much more. They can cause or increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer, hypertension, immune system weakness, osteoarthritis, diabetes, gallstones, and other problems.
When I was growing up during the Great Depression, we admired voluptuous, Rubenesque women and men with promi­nent, protruding abdomens. Their weight was a sign of prosper­ity and seemed to suggest good health to us. (We called a pot belly an alderman's belly because these officials always seemed to be portly and always seemed to have money. Theirs were
so­cially approved bodies.) But since that time we've learned a lot about the effects of fat on health. We now know that being obese, or simply overweight, raises the odds of contracting various dis­eases. For example, a study of 115,000 American women, ages 35-55, showed that being 5 percent or so above ideal body weight made one 30 percent more likely to develop coronary artery disease, while being 30 percent over ideal body weight led to a whopping 300 percent in the risk of this disease. I've observed this same correlation in thousands of patients. Losing weight and losing fat has almost always helped my heart pa­tients.